In today's Philadelphia Inquirer, Dennis McCauley takes a look back at Microsoft's black box and discusses how it helped revolutionize the console industry. Production of the original model has already ceased and the 360 is on display at Wal-Marts across the country in anticipation of its Nov. 22 release. Among the innovations of the first Xbox: a mass storage device to save games and store music for custom soundtracks, built-in network adapters for LAN play, and a centralized high-speed online gaming service.
Basically just a stripped-down PC optimized for gaming, many were wondering why create another platform to compete against Windows? Indeed, it took two years before Halo made its way to desktops and it appeared that Redmond had forsaken the PC gaming community. However, Microsoft has renewed their commitment to Windows gaming and hopefully the 360 will usher in an era of greater convergence between the desktop and living room for the generations to come.
[via SiliconValley.com]
